Hello! I had to give up cycling to work when I changed jobs a year ago. But now I've changed jobs again and am close enough to cycle again. So today was the first day I've not had an appointment during the day that needed the car, forecast when I looked at it last night was fine...And of course this morning was blowing a gale, horrendous head wind for the first commute in a year. Then it was raining and squally on the way home. I guess if I can get back commuting in that sort of weather anything after this will be a walk in the park!

Had a strong headwind for the ride in on Monday morning and ended up trading the draft back and forth with another rider. Had an early morning off-site meeting this morning so I took the work car home last night and left the bike in the cage.

Ride home tonight and upload yesterday's commute to Strava and notice that the other rider has uploaded his Monday morning ride with the following comment, Strong 30 to 40 kph headwind. thankfully able to share drafting with another larger rider.

Bbbrrrrr! Got motivated last night so set up the bike with lights etc. Made lunch, brought all my kit inside so I could step out early and get some extra km. Ended up having a pretty ordinary sleep so left later than I planned, but still continued to about 90% of the planned route. Was cool when I left, then up the Fernleigh it seemed to get colder. I was passed by a couple of riders as my out of shape legs struggled up the tiny incline through Redhead. Had a brief chat about how cold it was and one of the riders started calling out his Garmin temp reading, 0.4, 0.3...zero, -0.1 at that point I asked im to quit it as I knew it was cold! They said I was 'hardcore' as I only had shorts on, but it wasn't that bad. Numb fingers and um ... front saddle area. MY usual cool weather kit around here is only ever shorts as it doesn't often get below 5C. Once I got to Whitebridge it must have been 5 or 6C and felt positivley warm.

The headwind along the the lake foreshore realy sucked the life out of me towards the end and now I feel really flat. Seems the warm temps and too much good food in Fiji had a cost afterall.

Edit: in what might be a trap for new players I had a look at my GoPro footage from this morning and discovered that the camera had shut down after about 1min20 of riding in the cold temps, and then didn't come back on until I restarted it. (I had turned it off once on the Fernleigh to conserve battery life and card space and only turned it on after returning to the road)

Last edited by bychosis on Wed Jul 09, 2014 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

bychosis (bahy-koh-sis): A mental disorder of delusions indicating impaired contact with a reality of no bicycles.

Saw a low of 5.9 C on the Garmin this morning but was dressed for it so no issues... until a couple of spokes let go in the rear wheel.

The two previous spoke failures have been "<ping!> what was that?". This was more like dropping a handful of change on a tin roof while pulsing the rear brake and was a bit of a heart starter as I was accelerating through 30kph downhill to give a truck some room at the time.

Pulled up ok but wasn't game to ride any further with two spokes missing in action and another flopping free. Walked for thirty minutes to the LBS which is fortunately only a hundred metres from work. They say it's a warranty call but may fix the wheel one more time so I can still commute for a day or two while the paperwork gets done.

Scott_C wrote:Ride home tonight and upload yesterday's commute to Strava and notice that the other rider has uploaded his Monday morning ride with the following comment, Strong 30 to 40 kph headwind. thankfully able to share drafting with another larger rider.

He called me fat!

Ahahaha. Sorry, couldn't help myself. The trouble with Strava!

TigerFilly wrote:Hello! I had to give up cycling to work when I changed jobs a year ago. But now I've changed jobs again and am close enough to cycle again. So today was the first day I've not had an appointment during the day that needed the car, forecast when I looked at it last night was fine...

Welcome back to commuting, TigerFilly. If you can do it in that you can do it in any weather.

* * * *The ride home last night involved gusts of wind that almost blew me off the bike and near misses with suicidal pedestrians stepping out onto the road without looking. The crazy peds were all on Collins St. A couple stepped off the footpath onto the road without looking just as I was approaching. The man quickly stepped back onto the footpath after my 'Ois', and pretty much dragged the lady back. She made some weird noise as I went past, possibly from shock or affront or something.

The next one was past Swanston St on Collins going up the hill. Luckily for the lady who crossed the road and stepped out from behind a large van 2 metres in front of me without looking first, my spidey senses had gone off to tell me that may have been a ped shadow and that I couldn't see whether a ped would dart out blindly from behind the van... Which she did. She got a huge shock when she stepped out and there was a bike. I don't get why:

1) pedestrians don't stick their heads out and look before moving their whole bodies; and2) why pedestrians insist on crossing roads and coming out behind large vehicles like vans, trucks, trams and buses. At least if you walk in front of a normal car you can see the road instead of walking blindly.

This morning I was the dumb cyclist who didn't realise my backpack was 5 cms more to the outside than it should be and hit the side mirror of a stopped car I was passing to get to the bike box. He rightly honked me and I stopped and apologised and checked to see whether there was any damage. No damage but I feel really bad and stupid because there was plenty of space on the other side so it shouldn't have happened. Dumb.

Was pretty super-slow getting back into it after a week off and wussing out earlier in the week due to driving winds . Routine is not quite kicking back in yet as I forgot the top half of the underthings, oops - will just have to pretend I'm a hippy flower child flapping around in the breeze at Woodstock or something.

Finally got to wear my fancy-britches new helmet - feels very much less like a milk crate teetering on my head and I can even see better out of it. Never even realised my old one was in my peripheral vision but there ya go.

It's been a windy rides in Melbourne over the last couple of days - dry, not too cold, but windy.Did get a few drops just short of the CBD this morning, but nothing serious. Looks like this arvo might be a different matter though.

TailWind wrote:It's been a windy rides in Melbourne over the last couple of days - dry, not too cold, but windy.Did get a few drops just short of the CBD this morning, but nothing serious. Looks like this arvo might be a different matter though.

Tonight was wet, but much less windy. So, overall, a better ride. Cobblestones on Banana Alley were even more slippery than those on the TdF.

Summernight, I know what you mean. One of the worst things I remember from driving trams was peds coming out from between trams at the stop in the other direction. I am constantly amazed how peds don't look and treat tram tracks as a safe zone for pedestrians.

98Octane, more slippery than the TdF? Maybe, they seem to be coming off on the asphalt.

I managed to ride home last night between the downpours and only got splatters of muck on the shoes and the little bit of exposed skin peeking out from under the leggings. This morning was a nice, but very crisp, morning. A taxi driver gave me a little toot on Elizabeth St where that non-bike lane bike lane is (the one in the door death zone between Little Bourke and Bourke that I refuse to ride in and the City of Melbourne has told me that cyclists shouldn't ride in unless traffic is really banked up, but they've put it there anyway ). The honk was possibly implying that I should get in the death lane, but I ignored him and he managed to pass safely anyway so all was good.

Bleah, am feeling like carp & had the unusual joy of 2 morons - MM1 thought a pinch point between two parked cars was the perfect place to overtake & then suddenly having to back off when she realised it wasn't. MM2 stopped at the stop sign & then decided to drive her bully bus straight across in front of me, fortunately I managed to brake, swerve & avoid her. Her excuse - SMIDSY. Apparently a bright red jersey, lights and broad daylight aren't enough Sadly it seems the gopro didn't get a good image of her number plate.

TailWind wrote:It's been a windy rides in Melbourne over the last couple of days - dry, not too cold, but windy.Did get a few drops just short of the CBD this morning, but nothing serious. Looks like this arvo might be a different matter though.

Tonight was wet, but much less windy. So, overall, a better ride. Cobblestones on Banana Alley were even more slippery than those on the TdF.

Yup, steady light to moderate rain yesterday afternoon, but the wind had definitely let up...definitely preferable to the howling conditions over the past few days.Chilly this morning at 5.5C, but more or less dry, some wet patches on roads and paths.

is that behind Banana Alley? I remember riding down there. I'm glad I didn't look too closely at the gaps between the bluestones because they are huge...

Something which sounds like the BB is creaking and intermittently jerking the pedals around and sounding like it is going to die on the bike. Considering I've recently had the BB checked and it didn't solve the problem it is something else. It sounds like bearings going crazy and ripping at each other. Might have to look at the cassette and rear wheel.

Oh, and as a guy was about to pass me on the Albert St hill just outside the hospital (where I'm really really slow), he switched gears and his chain fell off. Whoops! He didn't pass me after that even when he caught up at the red light as we got to the flat bit beside the park and I pulled away (I'm not slow on the flat. ). How embarrassment to have it drop while you're trying to pass!

The forecast for next week means I'll probably add a neck warmer to the riding outfit. Colder than this week. But it's Friday! Yay!

Has been a week of the most perfect commuting weather - crisp clear mornings ranging between 13 - 16 degrees - that really gets us tropical dwellers rugged up for the ride. Light winds for the trips home. This is winter commuting at its best. Barely raising a sweat over the 16 km while still maintaining 28 - 33 kph averages. Been pretty good on the motorist front too. That does not mean nothing stupid has been happening. Just not life threatening. I maintain that this is because of the split rule!

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